Inspired by traditional Brazilian music forms as well as by tropicalia-era musical legends like Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, and Jorge Ben, San Francisco's musical group, Bat Makumba's has created a hip dance party sound full of rock infused ska, forro, and samba.
Brazil's tropicalia was a late 60's, early 70's musical movement that combined north American rock, blues, jazz, folk and psychedelic music with Brazilian and other Latin American styles. Closely identified with youth and counterculture, it was the most visible part of an artistic movement that sought to redefine Brazilian culture, and actively helped subvert the military dictatorship, which had taken over the country in 1964. Tropicalia was also a replacement to the more conservative form of bossa nova music, which had dominated pop style in Brazil since the late 50's.
Named after the classic Tropicalia song by Veloso and Gil (popularized by the music group Os Mutantes), "Bat Makumba" loosely translates to mean the mixing of Brazilian traditionalism. The core of this Bay Area band is made up of two Brazilians, lead vocalist and guitarist, Alex Koberle, and percussionist and singer, Emiliano Benevides. The third creative and business partner is Americano bassist Carl Remde.
Back in 2000, the three musicians decided to record a three-song demo CD. By 2003, the band's small project had turned into a 15 song self-titled album, which they sold at their shows. Media exposure and an interest through word of mouth resulted in the CD and the group becoming winners of a 2004 California Music Award for Outstanding Latin Alternative Album. They were also listed by the San Francisco Chronicle as one of Five Latin Bands to Watch, nominated for an SF Weekly Music Award as Best International Band, and their debut album was named one of the Best Records of 2003 by the East Bay Express.
Adding to the band's live performances are the contributions of horn player David Gibbs, keyboardist Ben Tergis and drummer Dan Porras along with the use of a large number of diverse instruments, including the use of accordion, zabumba, megaphone, clarinet and alfaia.
'LA'Ritmo.com spoke with lyricist and instrumentalist, Alex Koberle, who spent most of his life in Sao Paulo, Brazil, about Bat Makumba and their music.
[Phil Reser] Can you speak briefly on Brazilian music's long history of mixing styles, sounds, rhythms and textures from within the country and without and how it seems that places like the United States have been catching up with this type of musical melting pot?
[Alex Koberle] Brazil is a country much like the U.S., in that native peoples colonized by Europeans, who brought slaves from Africa, and later added a large populated number of immigrants from all over the world. All these cultures brought with them a musical heritage that was assimilated into the Brazilian musical lexicon. The major difference with the US is that, in Brazil, from the get go the cultures were mixed into a true melting pot. I think of the US as more of a salad of cultures where you can still make out all the separate pieces that make up this cultural mosaic. The Portuguese came to America to exploit the land and riches and then to return to Europe with the spoils. They didn't come to build a new country like the Pilgrims did. Therefore there were less Europeans in Brazil and they were less puritanical so there was a lot more miscegenation of the races and consequently of the music as well. This set the stage for the openness of the Brazilian music in that it embraces all influences it comes in contact with. The Tropicalia movement of the 60s was an affirmation of that notion and it brought back the ideas of the Week of Modern Art of 1922. That week was a milestone in Brazilian culture because the most influential artists of the time - musicians, writers, actors, painters, sculptors, etc - came together to define what was Brazilian culture. It had been 40 years since our independence from Portugal and to mark that occasion they wanted to define what we were artistically and culturally. The great writer Oswald de Andrade coined the term Anthropophagism (from the Greek Anthropo = man and Phagic = eating) to describe the culture as a man-eating culture in that we absorbed all the different cultures that existed within the borders of the country and created a new form that was greater than the sum of its parts.
[Phil Reser] How do you see Bat Makumba's historical connection to the Brazilian tropicalia?
[Alex Koberle] Tropicalia was a rescuing of the notions brought into existence in 1922 but also took them a step further. The main proponents of Tropicalia wanted to bring into Brazilian cultures all the radical ideas of the 60s. Cohen-Bandit and the French student revolution, the counter-culture movement of the US and everything that was happening with rock n' roll and psychedelic music. Bat Makumba continues to do that fusion of what is inherently Brazilian with influences from abroad. That's why we chose the name of the band to be Bat Makumba, a song by Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, two of the main tropicalia proponents. Caetano and Gil were also joined by people like Rita Lee and Os Mutantes, Gal Costa, Maria Bethania, Chacrinha, and Jorge Ben. It is very much in tune with what's happening in Brazil musically and abroad by Brazilian influenced musicians and Brazilian musicians in exile. Grunge, hip-hop, electronic meetsbaião, maracatu and samba. It's a continuation of tropicalia into the 21st century.
[Phil Reser] What inspired you to create a band in the musical direction you did?
[Alex Koberle] When Emiliano and I met, we both felt that there was a huge gap in what people here perceived Brazil to be and what was actually happening there. Musically and otherwise. We found that we had a lot in common in terms of the music we listened to and what inspired us. And we wanted to share that with people here. Nobody was playing that kind of music, the new contemporary Brazilian sounds. And we wanted to fill that gap. As far as we know we were the first local band to start using maracatu in the same way that bands like Chico Science and Nação Zumbi or Lenine were using it. Now everyone has a maracatu tune. It's a really powerful rhythm and it's the new old thing that's hip in Brazil right now. We felt that most people focused on the musical styles emanating from Rio and Salvador, basically samba and samba-reggae. We started using the rhythms of Recife and the state of Pernambuco in the Northern coast of Brazil. It was always my favorite place musically and I used to spend carnaval in Olinda, which is right next to Recife. That's where baião comes from and maracatu and coco and xaxado and many other rhythms. It's a very rich cultural crucible. So we took the music from that region and mixed it up with the rock and funk that we had grown up listening to: Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Clash, Funkadelic, and the more recent innovations of grunge, electronica and hip-hop. That's the basis of Bat Makumba.
[Phil Reser] Where did you come up with the name of the band?
[Alex Koberle] We were struggling to find a good strong name that reflected what we were doing. One day Emiliano comes to rehearsal and says, "what do you guys think of Bat Macumba?" I thought it was a good idea, the song being such a seminal one for Tropicalia, composed by Gil and Caetano and recorded by Os Mutantes, with nonsensical lyrics that symbolize a lot. Good strong name. I didn't feel it looked as strong written out, as it sounded spoken, so I suggested we change the 'c' for a 'k' and that's how we came up with Bat Makumba.
[Phil Reser] What kinds of instrumental interplay would you say shape the band's unique sound and identity?
[Alex Koberle] I think the strong percussion element and the distorted guitars lay the foundation of the sound. It's tribal and powerful. It conjures up images of tribal drums and the electricity of modern society, the electric guitars. The distortion brings in the anger element, the revolt of the rock generation; the drums the foundation of all music. Add to that the clarinet, sax and flute of Dave Gibbs and we have a very interesting contrast. The flute is widely used in the music of Pernambuco state, where it is called a "pifano". Pifano bands play in several folkloric "festas" especially in the winter parties in June. Carl Remde plays a 6-string bass and he brings in a lot of the funk and rock element with the low-end.
[Phil Reser] What would you say you try to accomplish with your compositions and your lyrics?
[Alex Koberle] Mainly we're trying to paint pictures of our country and attitudes that permeate the culture. With that comes a wealth of emotions, such as rage against the rampant poverty of Latin America, or love for the incredible beauty of the land. The theme of exile is very present in our first CD, which speaks to the fact that we're living far from our homeland and miss it terribly.
[Phil Reser] Have you or would you like to tour Brazil some day?
[Alex Koberle] We haven't yet but plan on doing so once we finish our new CD, which we're beginning to record now.
[Phil Reser] What kinds of positive and experimental collaboration have you had with other musicians?
[Alex Koberle] We had a few guest musicians play on our first CD. Most notably was the Velha Guarda da Mangueira (VGM) on the song "Morro de Saudade". VGM is a group of old sambistas from Mangueira, the most traditional Samba School in Rio. These guys and gals are all over 60 years old and have been playing music all their lives. They're a Buena Vista Social Club of Brazil so to speak. Emiliano had worked with them in the past, touring through Europe, and when we started recording the song we had to decide how to do it. The song is a samba-enredo, which is the narrative sambas played by the samba schools of Rio during the carnaval parade and it's played by anywhere from 400 to 700 musicians. So we had to figure out how to emulate that. We considered hiring local musicians to play it but there aren't nearly enough qualified people in the whole US let alone in the Bay Area. So Emiliano had the idea of bringing in VGM. So we recorded a scratch track and sent it down to them on a CD. Josimar Monteiro, the musical director of VGM, then brought his crew into the studio and recorded them in ProTools and sent us the raw session. We opened it here and when we first heard it we wanted to cry we were so happy. it was beautiful. It sounded so authentic. Jurandir recorded the lead vocals and his voice is so recognizable. We then recorded some extra instruments here and I laid down some lead vocals next to Jurandir's, so we're trading verses. It was amazing. All this percussion, cavaquinho, 7-string guitars and vocals, both lead and background. That was a great experience. We also had Aurea Onorato and Raquel Coelho, both local Brazilian singers on some other tracks. Aurea did the lead on "Cantiga".
[Phil Reser] Does the particular language you sing and communicate with in your compositions play a major importance in your songs or does your lyrical language make no difference to American audiences?
[Alex Koberle] I think that Americans love the sound of Brazilian Portuguese. Actually, every foreigner I speak to does too. It has a very 'swishy" sound, like the ocean. It's very musical too. Sometimes I wish people understood more of what we're saying. I see the response that people have to the Spanish language songs and it makes me miss Brazil even more. It's so rewarding when I see a Brazilian person in the audience singing along with us. We do have some songs in Spanish and the next CD will feature Portuguese, English and Spanish lyrics.
[Phil Reser] What are you particularly proud of about your debut CD and what might the next one be like?
[Alex Koberle] We're very proud of the fact that we recorded this CD on our own and received a great response. We won a California Music Award in 2004 for Outstanding Latin Alternative Album, a category that had some well produced albums, a few of them recorded and produced by big time producers in very expensive studios. One of the acts in the same category was later nominated for a Latin Grammy, I think. So something that we did ourselves at home received major accolades from the public and the media. Also, the variety of music that we included. It was 15 tracks of original material (and one cover that we essentially rewrote) and it spanned the genres from samba to baião to maracatu to funk etc. The next CD will also be self-produced but we will bring in a co-producer as an external set of ears and to bring in fresh ideas. We will also record some of the instruments in a professional studio, drums and lead vocals at least. You can expect a wide range of genres on this CD as well as this is what we're about. We listen to all kinds of music and have very eclectic tastes and that will be reflected in the music we write.
[Phil Reser] What do you feel is the most important musical bond that keeps this band creatively working together?
[Alex Koberle] A love of rhythm and upbeat music that uplifts the spirit. Dancing as a means to happiness, making people dance. Our audience has been immensely supportive and I have to thank the fans for the continuing success we've enjoyed. It would not be the same without them and I think that helps to keep us together and working.
[Phil Reser] Where would you like to move creatively and promotionally with your music in the future?
[Alex Koberle] That's hard to say. I think the truly creative artist feels like he's as much a vehicle for something that wants to manifest itself through his art as he is a creator himself. It's a combination of directing the creative flow and just letting it go whichever way it wants to. We don't feel drawn to any particular genre in and of itself and that is reflected in the variety of musical genres that we explore on our first CD. I think the next one will be like that too although I believe it will be more cohesive just because we've been together for a long time now. These songs are being written with this particular group of people in mind. But we'd love to work with an established producer at some point. Someone who could open some doors for us not only in the studio with techniques and knowledge but also promotionally with labels and distribution. We'd like to travel to the East coast and abroad, especially Brazil, Europe and Japan. And we think that that's where a label can really help. I don't mean the major major labels but some of the smaller more specialized labels such as Luaka Bop, Nonesuch, Ryko, those that have a worldly roster of artists and are not afraid to take some chances.
www.batmakumba.com
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